Britain's national parks failing, report finds

A paltry 6% of national park land in England and Wales is being effectively managed for nature, according to a damning new report.

The Campaign for National Parks (CNP) charity has released a document which marks the first full assessment of how well national parks are supporting nature recovery.

National parks, which cover 10% of England and 20% of Wales, and this year celebrate their 75th anniversary, are not restoring nature because of a chronic lack of government funding and because they were designed for a different era, according to the report.

National parks are important refuges for declining species such as Common Cuckoo, but a new report has found that many are not serving their purpose (Dennis Morrison).

 

Lack of funding

The parks' direct grant from government has been cut by 40% in real terms since 2010, with most national parks only receiving several million pounds – equivalent to the annual budget of a small secondary school.

Ruth Bradshaw, policy manager for CNP, said: "National parks are special places and they are the last refuges for struggling species like Eurasian Curlew, Hen Harrier and Common Cuckoo. 

"Nature in the national parks isn't immune from the crisis that is happening elsewhere but there are huge opportunities to bring it back to good health. We need urgent action and major changes – the government needs to strengthen legislation and significantly increase the resources that are going into nature recovery in the national parks."

 

Protecting wild spaces

National parks are key to Britain meeting its commitment to protecting 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030 but nature is still in retreat in these protected areas.

Peatlands, which store carbon and cover 43% of the land within national parks, are in poor condition. An estimated 1% of Dartmoor's deep peat area is in a healthy condition, according to the CNP report. 

There had been virtually no change in woodland coverage across national parks in the five years to 2020, and rivers and lakes are in worsening health. The 47% of rivers in national parks judged in 'good' health in 2013 fell to 39% in 2022.

Apart from the lack of funding, national parks are struggling to restore nature because only 13.7% of national park land is publicly owned, with the vast majority privately owned and managed as farmland. Most of this land has suffered from the same nature losses linked to the intensification of farming over the past 75 years in the rest of Britain.

 

Changes needed

Part of the problem, CNP report said, was that national parks were created 75 years ago to address fears of urbanisation. Although enhancing wildlife is one of the parks' statutory duties, the parks have not changed their mission to reflect the 21st-century climate and extinction crises.

CNP is calling for a new deal for national parks, with the government setting a clear new priority that they are for nature protection and restoration alongside a doubling of core national park grants to restore 2010 funding levels.

It wants a ban on all burning of moorlands within national parks (a common practice on shooting estates), a ban on all forestry plantations on any depth of peat soil (a practice which can degrade peatlands and cause more carbon emissions) and the licensing of driven grouse shoots to reduce the illegal persecution of threatened species such as Hen Harrier.

It also wants government agencies, including the Ministry of Defence and Forestry England, and water companies to pay for the restoration of areas that have suffered from historic damage such as pollution, the planting of conifers on peatland and the cost of removing unexploded ordnance, which makes restoration much more expensive.